


For Sheep to Talk Peace

by You_Light_The_Sky



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blood, Dark, Dub con elements, F/F, Fem Sherlock, Fem Watson, Femlock, Loosely based off of Red Riding Hood, Rape Culture elements, Supernatural Elements, Violence, Werewolves, non con elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 22:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1487212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Light_The_Sky/pseuds/You_Light_The_Sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joanna Watson is a broken Red in a world where little Reds barely live a year on the job. Then there’s the female wolf that stalks her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Sheep to Talk Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [michi_thekiller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/michi_thekiller/gifts), [PrettyArbitrary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyArbitrary/gifts).



> For michi_thekiller and prettyarbitrary because they wanted Red-Riding-Hood-John and wolf-Sherlock way back when. Instead I made it a femlock werewolf-ish AU and I hope you like it anyways. I know it's another WIP, but I really wanted to get this out there so that I can pick up an inspiration to write again. I hope you like it : )

Drip drop. Drip drop. The red plops down into the white bed of snow, oozing downwards into the membrane of the crisp white blanket on the earth. The snow eats up whatever colour it can. Disgusting colours, the leftover excrements of the body—sweat, blood, urine—but colour nonetheless (little tiny pockets of life, returning to the snow.) One day the snow will happily eat her corpse, covering it lovingly in its icy embrace and quilts of frosted snow.

Maybe even today, Joanna thinks, half running, half dragging her limp through turrets of clinging snow. She lost her snowshoes back by the last ten meters of trees, the tips had dug in too deep into the White Plains and then the snow had swallowed her snowshoes up, trying to tug Joanna’s feet in with them until she cute at the bindings and began to run again.

Her cloak clings to her, a groping lover wrapped all around her limbs, hindering her escape. Joanna wants to throw it off but _no_ not yet. All Reds keep their cloaks until the last minute. _No rest for any Red. No sex or love or drugs. Nothing but the chase and only ‘til you’re dead,_ Joanna thinks bitterly. The childish song (banned in all city-states within the Empire) echoes cyclically in her head. She and Bill used to sing it to tick off the hire-ups, never mind how true it was. (Ideally) Reds are supposed to be pure little virgins (not that it matters to Wolves, meat is meat). Reds don’t last longer than a year in Wolf territory.

 _So what are you doing out here, you idiot?!_ She imagines Harry saying, _get out, get out, this is no place for you!_

The wolf howls… and it’s coming from right in front of her. Joanna stops and pulls out her gun, pointing it straight ahead. She wills her breathing to slow with her heart. Don’t react. Don’t let them smell your fear. She is a gun and she is a weapon and she controls the trigger.

Joanna hears laughter echoing around her. A mix of human and wolf. A sneer and a salivating bark.

“Such a broken little Red…” it taunts her, “…come to chase after her friend…”

She clenches her jaw, eyes fixed straight ahead as the sick voice slithers all around her.

“He was scrumptious, you know,” it says, silent pit-pats against the snow. “So desperate and gasping for you.”

Its steps echo the drip-drop of the blood down her shoulder. She feels her hands begin to shake and Joanna fights to keep her grip steady with both hands.

“Aw…” it taunts, “how scared you are. Can barely lift a gun… what did the Corps send you out for? A mercy killing, maybe? Get rid of their weakest girl while they could?”

Her leg is trembling, damn it. She is _not_ going to put down this gun. She is _not—_

“It’s almost a shame to kill you. You’re so pretty… He cried for you, you know… It was your name he screamed when I ripped out his throat… he wondered when you were coming for him… _Joanna_ …”

A branch snaps and Joanna whips around, three shots in succession, that’s all it will take.

The wolf howls but this time she can feel the trill of its pain tingling up her spine, the dead fall of its body, and Joanna slowly lowers her pistol as she spies the bloody and furry corpse being eaten by the snow. Three bullets hitting the skull in the exact same place. Perfect shot. Blood oozing.

 _That was for Bill,_ she thinks before she lets her knees fall into the cold, _that was for Bill, you son of a bitch._

-

She didn’t always want to be a Red.

The Wolf pandemic had started when she was a baby and countries were losing soldiers quick to those intelligent mutant creatures. She remembered hearing her mother telling Harry and her stories about entire cities that were wiped out by only a dozen Wolves in one week. Apparently the Wolves had targeted the soldier camps first, then locked the remaining populace within the walled cities, picking off the locals meal by meal while killing off any platoons that tried to take back the cities. Joanna couldn’t imagine it, back then, being trapped in a city, no way to get out, knowing that one day you’d be eaten by a Wolf.

All she did know back then was that she didn’t want to meet a Wolf. She never wanted one to eat her family, she’d sooner die first. Apparently what scientists used to call the old wolves looked like giant dogs and these new mutant Wolves could walk on two legs, think and talk like human beings. Some said they could _shift_ and pretend to be humans if they wanted to (not that they were good at it, the bloodlust got to them after lingering for so long among people.) Joanna couldn’t help but wonder, sometimes, if Wolves could think like people… what did that make them? Were they animals or… or _people_? Messed up crazy people who ate the ones too weak to fight back.

She’ll never forget the horrified look that came on her mother’s face when Joanna asked that question. Helen Watson had told Joanna to be quiet and that little girls didn’t ask such things. “Wolves are monsters. They wouldn’t hesitate to devour us and we shouldn’t hesitate to shoot their heads off,” her normally calm mother had said.

Helen had Harry and Joanna training religiously with her illegal shotgun at the crack of every dawn. When they were a little older, she taught them how to get out of certain strangle holds and told them to always aim for the eyes and the balls if they were ever attacked. “And if possible, use your fingers to jab at their throat,” she would call every morning session. She obsessed over their clothing, making sure that Joanna and Harry had short haircuts and wore grey drab colours.

“Wolves love bright colours,” Helen had warned them, “ _especially red_ ,” the banned colour across all walled cities, “never wear red.”

“But why?” Harry had asked, a challenge in her tone. “That’s not fair. I _like_ red. It’s pretty. These clothes aren’t very pretty. Makes me feel like dirt.”

“Because it looks like blood,” their mother had said.

And wolves love blood, she hadn’t said.

So they kept to the no-bright-colours rule that their mother had instated. They stayed far away from scarlets and rouges, from pinks and blushing peaches, from lipstick and makeup. They trained religiously in the morning and studied hard at school, coming home to do chores and more training. Then bed promptly at ten. Harry and Joanna had never complained; they didn’t know any better. Whenever they had gone out for groceries with their mum, Helen would sneer at the teenaged women who still went out in revealing clothing, who dared to decorate their lips with blushing rouge.

“They’re asking for Wolves to come devour them,” Helen would say. “Mark my words, girls, when Wolves come to attack our city, those… those _women_ will be the first to die.”

She wouldn’t move until the Watson sisters nodded in agreement with her and they always would—but not before glancing at each other in discomfort. The truth was that when it was time for bed, Harry and Joanna had often confided in each other under the covers. They’d whisper that it wasn’t very fair that their mother was so strict and they couldn’t wear lovely things as other girls could. Harry was always very vocal about what she wanted to wear, about how she snuck some of her friend’s make up home for them to try. Joanna just thought it wasn’t very nice to wish death on anyone ( _she couldn’t imagine that_.)

But they’d never told their mother back then. They knew that everything Helen did, she did for love of them. How could Helen do any wrong when she loved them and wanted to protect them? She told them, ‘I only do this because I love you’ so often that the word ‘love’ had come to feel like a shackle with added chains hanging on the girls the more they smiled and acquiesced to Helen’s will. They loved her. But they were drowning in it and they hadn’t known how to swim out when they’d never been shown how.

Maybe nothing would have changed, Joanna is scared to admit. Maybe she and Harry would have grown up never really questioning their mother’s attitudes towards Wolves save for the nightly confessions they indulged in. She can imagine herself, in another future, short hair to the ears, plain grey clothes, working at a night shift in a hospital and privately dismissing other women who dressed as they wished. It scares her. Maybe she wouldn’t have held on to Harry, maybe she would have shunned her to keep with Helen’s good graces (and that scares her, what she could have been.)

But that Joanna doesn’t exist because at the tender age of twelve, she saw her first ‘Red’ appear on the telly.

-

Joanna lies in the snow, numb, waiting for the silent white to pile up around her red cloak and hair, for it to slowly siphon away her breaths. She watches the tiny puffs from her lips begin to dissipate into smaller clouds until they barely blend against the grey sky. Her blood is still warm, pooling beneath her legs. But it will freeze soon. The snow has already begun its work, taking away the feeling from her fingers. She can barely feel the pistol in her palm anymore.

Everything is just fading away. Like going to sleep. It might be alright then, leaving like this. Joanna doesn’t think that death is as scary as it’s meant to be, if it’s as peaceful as this. She just wants to close her eyes… just for a little bit and then she’ll… and then she’ll…

Above her, a wolf howls.

Fuck. She forgot.

“No,” she chokes out, spitting out snow. “I can’t… I can’t…” she can’t die like this. All of this fucking snow, messing with her head, making her dream of warmth and close embraces, of fading off into some entrancing light. She doesn’t want it. There are still Wolves out there, still more work to do, for Harry and Clara, for Bill—god Bill, she could see him again, really see him again but—

It’s howling again. Calling others towards it. Probably trying to find its dead pack mate. Running towards the scent of blood. Towards her.

She bites down on her tongue, the shock of the pain enough to jolt her hands back around her gun and she forces herself back up, shivering. Her stupid cloak is supposed to insulate her, keep her warm but she can’t stop shaking and the last thing Joanna wants is to have a shaky grip when she needs to shoot those bastards before they get her.

There’s one here now. Joanna spots it from the corner of her eye, lurking far in the solace of crowded pine trees… just watching her. It’s not far from the dead monster that Joanna killed earlier but it doesn’t show any signs of pack aggression which makes Joanna tenser then anything. This wolf could be a loner, not part of the pack. Or it could be one of the ones that will attack without warning, its anger buried deep below.

Joanna doesn’t take any chances. She bites down again, the pain helping her focus, and then she aims for the wolf’s eyes (eerie blue-green and grey mixed with the traditional amber of all Wolves, the only thing she can really spot from this distance.) It’s moving towards her before she can get in a decent shot. Joanna adjusts her grip, leaning down on her knees so she doesn’t collapse and fires off a series of consecutive bullets that barely scratch the wolf’s ears and fuck, fuck, fuck, it’s going to be on her in at least five seconds no—

She’s thrown backwards against the snow ( _oh god_ ) and she’s punching it in its eyes, trying to knee it in the balls like she’s been taught and trying to fire a bullet into it through the side. But it lashes out with its paws and Joanna’s gun is flung back into another blanket of snow. It snarls at her and Joanna feels it nipping at her neck and ( _oh god please_ ) her blows are barely strong enough to bother it.

“Fuck,” she chokes out, “fuck, fuck, fuck…”

This is it. Her expiration date. She barely lasted the year. She had hoped to beat the record… she and Bill had made bets (but Bill’s gone, isn’t he, dear? _Shutupshutupshutup_ —) but who was she kidding? The world doesn’t need a broken Red and now…

She keeps punching it on the sides of its face, tries to. But it lifts up its paws and pins her arms down (that’s right, these Wolves are bipedal. These Wolves are smart and they love a good chase and Joanna is surprised this one hasn’t begun taunting her yet as all Wolves do.) It looks up at her with another snarl and Joanna freezes, caught up in that calculating, probing gaze.

Whatever it’s waiting for, it seems to have found it when it huffs and moves down along her body, lower and lower and—

_Oh god, please let me live!_

_—_ she feels it lapping up the blood on her calves. Joanna looks down at it in shock, wondering what its game is. Is it just licking the frosting before devouring the cake? But it’s not biting her, not yet. Instead it’s just… cleaning her wound and when Joanna tries to move, it growls at her until she is still.

When the blood is gone, it tears off a piece of Joanna’s cloak to tie around the wound, stop the bleeding and then it lies on top of her as a warm comforter against the cold.

Joanna is too stunned to move.

“…Why…”

“Because you’re interesting,” it says for the first time, in a deep alto. Female. Deep. Posh. “And I like my meals to be as interesting as possible… boredom is a terrible taste.”

“I’m not interesting,” Joanna wants to laugh. At herself. At the ridiculousness of this situation. At the world that took Bill away from her.

“ _Oh_ , my dear,” it whispers, “but you _are_. I watched you kill him. It was beautiful. You killed a Wolf when you could barely walk at all. Such a fragile little thing but you’re a _wolf_ inside. You kill for your mates. I’d love to open you up and see how you work but I suppose I will have to settle for eating you when you’re ripe.”

“And what… what does _that_ mean?”

The wolf huffs again and it flashes its teeth at her, “That I’ll be watching you… until I know you’re ripe. And then, only then, will I eat you.”

Around them, Joanna can hear more wolves howling, coming closer to their location. They’ll see their dead comrade soon and they’ll smell Joanna (or will they? This female Wolf is covering her, hiding her scent but _why_ —) She’ll either be ripped to shreds by an entire pack of Wolves or devoured by this one. What lovely options, really.

“Well you might as well kill me now before your friends arrive. I’m afraid I probably won’t taste very good,” she spits in its face.

“Oh my dear,” it says against her ear, “I don’t think so.”

It jumps off of Joanna and rushes out into the woods, the sound of a chopper deafening the sound of the other wolves. Joanna sees lights up ahead and someone shouting for a medic as hands reach down and carry Joanna onto a stretcher and into the helicopter. People are shouting, ‘Red Watson, Red Watson,’ but she isn’t answering because—

“ _I’ll be seeing you, dear Joanna_ ,” it said before it licked her cheek and ran.

—how the fuck had it known her name?

-

Her name was Mary Morstan. Her entire family had been killed by Wolves when she was younger and she had trained and embraced all lore regarding these mutant Wolves right after. The footage on the telly showed her in a long beautiful red cloak, with a delicate lace dress underneath and beautiful curly blonde hair. But what really caught Joanna’s attention at the time, was the look of utter contentment and satisfaction on Ms. Morstan’s face when she took out a rifle and began firing at every Wolf in the streets, aiming perfectly at the center of each Wolf’s skull.

She freed the Walled City of Berlin in one week. There were reports of Ms. Morstan moving across Europe to free other Wolf-infested cities. A one-woman army they called her, helped by a weapons specialist named Janine. They were calling her a hero. A Red.

Joanna thought that Ms. Morstan was the most beautiful and amazing human being that she had ever seen. A female superhero. Better than those Superman and Spiderman characters that other children in her class fawned over. Ms. Morstan was _real_ and she wore pretty things and had long hair and she still beat away the monsters.

She wanted to be just like her, making a difference. Protecting people from Wolves (and maybe then, no one would lose a husband like her mum did, maybe her mum wouldn’t be so bitter and sad when she thought Harry and Joanna weren’t looking.)

“Holy shit,” Harry had said when she saw the newscast on Ms. Morstan. “Does this mean we can wear red too now? I mean look at _her,_ she is stunning! And she can kill Wolves! We can kill them too, can’t we, Jo? So it’s alright if we start wearing red and stuff right?”

“God, I hope so, Harry,” Joanna had grinned back. “Come on, let’s go tell mum about Ms. Morstan! She’ll be so thrilled!”

-

“Red Watson, you were in direct violation of the Corps orders for you to stay within the walls. Do you realize what you risked when you ventured into the Snowlands alone? Without a new handler?”

A new handler? Right. Bill was the only handler she liked. She knew the risks. She’s not stupid. Just read out the punishment already. Just send her out on another suicide mission. Joanna knows (well, suspects) what the Corps does with disobedient Reds. They don’t last long in this business (then again, no Red does.)

She says nothing. Just stares at her leg, the one they tell her she can’t use without a limp. At her hand, which trembles when she remembers the cold and Bill’s face and blood on the ground and— _I’ll be seeing you, dear Joanna—_ her hand stills.

They go on and on about protocol and Joanna listens and accepts her fate.

They tell her that she’s unfit to continue being a Red because of her injuries and congratulate her on being the first Red to retire after her term ended. They give her a smile and a medal and it just feels like the weight of Bill’s heart in her hand and she throws it in a box when they’re done.

I can still fight, she argues, Bill’s face pressed against her mind. I’m an excellent shot. I’m not done yet, damn it. I’m a Doctor (ex-Doctor) and I can patch people up (yes, with a shaking hand if I have to—) I’ll fight until I’m dead.

But in the end, they don’t want a broken Red. She’s a ‘liability’ and she’ll drag other Reds down with her if she has to start working with them (and all Reds work alone with their handlers.)

They send her home.

-

Helen Watson had not be thrilled at all by this new Ms. Morstan.

“That woman is a menace,” Helen had spat out. “That’s not a woman’s work. She’s putting herself in danger and what happens if other young girls attempt to follow in her steps?”

Harry and Joanna had stared at her in disbelief.

“Promise me, girls, that you will never try to find a Wolf by yourselves. I couldn’t bear it if you were attacked because of some flitting fanciful delusions of being… being a…. a…”

“A what?” Harry had snapped. “A hero?”

There was silence but not the kind that Joanna had liked. This kind was the worst, a sort of silence ripped out from the darkest parts of their hearts and brought out into the open in a paralyzing sort of state. Suddenly, Joanna hadn’t wanted to look at either her mum or Harry, afraid of what had been bubbling resentfully under the surface for all these years.

“…Excuse me, Harriet?” Helen had replied coolly, “Are you _talking back_ to me?”

“Oh please, like that’s the worst thing I could do,” Harry had said. “Why can’t we dress like Ms. Morstan? Why can’t we go after Wolves if we find them? We can protect ourselves. You trained us since we could walk! We can shoot any target you show us. Why do you have to keep us locked up in your little bubble, your expectations of who we’re supposed to be? Why are you so afraid all the time?”

“That’s enough, young lady, I’ve been trying to protect you—”

“But you haven’t given us any choices. You want us to be afraid all the time well I don’t want to live like that. I want the monsters to be afraid of _me_ for a change so I’ll dress as I like. If I want grey I will dress in grey. If I want red then red it is. But only because I want to. You haven’t given us any good reasons for dressing this way except fear and I’m done with that. Wolves should fear _us_ ,” Harry had finished, turning around to the door.

“And where are you going?!” Helen had demanded.

“Outside!”

“No, you’re not, you’re coming back in here and we are going to talk about this, Harriet Lynn Watson or I swear you will be cleaning the bathroom for a year—”

“I’m sixteen, I can go out if I want to!” Harry had slammed the door.

And then it had been quiet again.

Joanna didn’t dare move. She considered tiptoeing to her room and reading her biology textbooks when she saw her mother’s tears slowly coming down her face. Helen never cried in front of them. Their mother had seemed to be an unmovable rock, always worried or lecturing them about proper pistol grip.

She couldn’t help it then. She stepped towards her mother and held her hand.

Helen seemed surprised when she blinked, as if seeing Joanna for the first time. “Oh my Joanna, you won’t ever leave me, will you? You’ll stay away from Wolves and you’ll stay safe because you’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

_You won’t make me cry?_

Joanna had stilled. She loved Harry and she loved her mother too. She didn’t think either of them were wrong. Harry had a point—she and Joanna could protect themselves well because of Helen’s training but it couldn’t hurt to be careful. Besides, Helen was just being a worried mother, perfectly understandable and Joanna never wanted to make her cry. Even if it meant giving up on being a Red.

“Don’t worry mum,” Joanna hugged her. “I won’t leave you. I’ll become a doctor like Da was. I’ll make things better. I promise.”

That’s all she had wanted, really. To make people feel better.

But you can’t. Not always, she knew that back then and she knows now, but she can try.

-

London was as dreary as she remembered. It is always snowing or half-snowing and half-raining in which case there would be slush everywhere as if the city couldn’t decide if it wanted to follow the Snowlands into an eternal white or do what London always does—rain. Joanna hates her little one-room apartment with its grey walls and hard tiny bed. The dismal colours reminded her of her childhood and she didn’t want to pester Harry with too many emails about how miserable she was; it would only encourage her sister to come and get her and Joanna doesn’t want to bother Harry. Her sister just got back together with Clara.

And Joanna will never call her mother for help.

Living in a world of Wolves is hard. But Joanna always thought being a Red was worth preserving the oblivious innocence of the people who live Walled.

London is one of the better walled cities to live in, she knows. More imports and exports go through here than the other cities in the country; a better selection of cuisine and services. It’s one of the most populated cities in the world with the greatest Wall system to protect from Wolves. There are planes patrolling the skies outside the walls constantly and sentries posted on every meter on the top and bottom of the Wall. There is nowhere safer.

But Joanna just feels trapped. Restless. She wants to run again. She wants to joke around with Bill (but he’s not coming back) and she wants to feel adrenaline pumping through her veins when she thinks _yes, this is what I’m meant to do._ Now she’s limping down the street, feeling as lost as a buoy in the open sea.

Hospitals have no need for a surgeon with shaky hands. Scotland Yard won’t take a delicate looking woman with a limp and she would throw something if she had to work a desk job. But what choice does she have? She needs to find some sort of work or she won’t be able to stay in London (the pension given to Reds is terrible) and she doesn’t want to intrude on Harry.

She feels so useless. So broken. She used to be the best Red of the Corps and now she can’t even lift up her gun without shaking, without seeing Bill’s face and that female wolf taunting her. She feels like pieces of glass that will never be whole again and whenever she walks outside, she feels like a wreck inside.

As she hobbles down the street, she can feel people staring at her. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t. But she _feels_ like they are. Like they know how shattered she is inside. Like they’re judging her under the weight of their gazes and she will never be able to stand up again.

She keeps her head up and limps ahead, trying to pretend that she’s not floundering because there’s no battlefield.

She can do this. It’s just London.

Just London.

-

Harry began wearing pink and red outfits to annoy their mother, working late hours as a waitress and taking motorcycle lessons. She grew her hair out until it reaches her elbows and Joanna remembered looking longingly at Harry’s long braid, wishing she could do the same. Helen became snappish towards Harry and consequently, more attentive to Joanna’s school work and time.

Joanna was the ‘good’ daughter but she didn’t feel it. Sometimes she wondered what would happen if she tried talking to her mum about it, tried to articulate how she felt and let Helen understand how constricted she felt at home. Would it be so bad to say what she felt like Harry does? She felt so envious of Harry back then, for being able to speak her mind and she wished for the former closeness they shared.

They continued like that, strangers to each other in the same house. Only sitting in the same room when the news was on the telly, listening to more reports of massacres and Walled cities in America falling quickly to the Wolf scourge but Walled cities in Europe being liberated by Ms. Morstan. Every time Joanna heard another report of Ms. Morstan freeing yet another city she hoped that maybe this day, Helen would see what good work Ms. Morstan does… maybe this day, Helen wouldn’t be as restricting…

But just over a year after the first news cast with Ms. Morstan on the job… every news station in the world was horrified to report that Mary Morstan has been killed in the line of duty. Eaten by a pack of Wolves when she tried to free Paris.

The world’s first Red was dead.

Inside, Joanna felt whatever hope she had been harboring die that day as her mother had launched into a ‘See? That’s what she deserved’ speech and Harry, too, seemed to deflate at the table when they heard the news.

Mary Morstan had been a shining figure of triumph to Joanna, a hero. And now she was gone. As if to say, _this is what happens to Reds._

Harry threw her mug at the floor that day, yelling at Helen to shut up before she stormed off to her waitressing job. Joanna had wished watched the dripping coffee on the floor, wishing she could join it.

The next day, two formerly freed Walled cities were retaken. Like Ms. Morstan had never existed at all.

-

She is struggling with a package from Tesco’s when she sees a group of men harassing a well-dressed woman on the street. Joanna was staring enviously at the woman’s beautiful black coat and blue scarf while the woman was speaking with this group of men when their stances became aggressive and Joanna tensed when they began yelling at the woman, shouting, ‘How dare you say that about my girl, you bitch! We have a great sex life!’

The woman scoffs. “The state of your eyes and wrists suggest otherwise. Tell me, did you know that she’s left you to see your friend behind your back?”

“Y-You…! That’s it, bitch, I’m gonna teach you a lesson—” the man and his goons move forward and that’s when Joanna throws her groceries at them.

Shards of glass and jam and milk spew across the men’s shirts and they’re turning red in disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” Joanna says, blank-faced, “I think I slipped. So clumsy, me. Oh, look, I think I see a constable over there… excuse me!” Joanna says sweetly, “can you please help me! I seem to have fallen…”

At the sound of ‘constable’ the goons panic and run off, shouting the clichéd ‘this isn’t over yet’ and ‘you’ll get yours!’ It makes Joanna roll her eyes. She didn’t think that street thugs were that predictable but apparently they are…

The woman she helped is staring down at Joanna in what seems like astonishment.

“Are you alright?” Joanna asks gently, regaining her grip on her cane.

The woman’s gaze flickers down towards Joanna’s feet and her cane and then slowly back up to her eyes until Joanna feels the urge to fidget. She wants to blush under the woman’s gaze. She’s elegant, pale and has lovely curly hair that Joanna wants to touch (Harry always laughed at Joanna’s thing with soft hair. She called it a childhood fixation.)

“You’re a Red,” says the woman.

And Joanna just says, “Huh?” before the woman continues, “Former Red actually. Fascinating. I’ve never heard of any Red reaching retirement or being dismissed from the Corps. Which was it? Ah, I see, a flinch. So the latter. Likely from your limp. Psychosomatic, actually. You should fire your therapist if you aren’t seeing her—probably a passive aggressive attempt of yours to show the Corps that they don’t control you, judging from your eyes and your actions. You aren’t the type to stand back and follow orders all the time, are you? No, you _would_ follow orders but they have to be the right kind… and you need the right kind of handler. You’ve lost him. Your last handler. Love him even. And now you’re lost. Unused to the Walled city life after working as an army doctor and then transferring to the Corps.”

Joanna stares.

“Well?” the woman turns away, “Was I right?”

“Um, yes… I mean… how…?”

“Your face has many tells. You should fix that, _anyone_ could find out your secrets,” the woman says, a dangerous glint in her eyes.

“I…” Joanna blinks, feeling strangely excited, “that’s just amazing! Brilliant, even! I’ve never seen anyone do that just from my ‘tells’ and you just met me!”

The woman blinks back.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Joanna wants to laugh, “really, truly, amazing. Absolutely brilliant.”

“…Thank you.”

And the woman resumes staring again.

“Oh, how rude of me,” she blushes and stretches out her hand, “Um, I’m Joanna Watson. Pleased to meet you.”

The woman stares at her hand as if it’s an alien object that needs to be dissected. But Joanna keeps it there.

Slowly, the woman smirks and the excited sensation in Joanna’s stomach seems to flutter all the way up to her toes.

“Sheridan Holmes. But you can call me ‘Sherlock,’ dear _Joanna_.”

And for a moment, she thinks of glinting Wolf eyes and a promise to find her before Joanna shivers and pushes the memory away. It’s silly. Sheridan isn’t a Wolf. They can’t look like humans though they walk like people do. But Sheridan Holmes has this aura of danger around her and Joanna can’t help it if her heart begins racing when she touches Sheridan’s cold fingers.

When Sheridan smirks again, Joanna can’t help but think of what big shiny teeth she has.

“So,” she says, plunging straight ahead, “do you do that all the time…? Or…?”

Sheridan laughs, a beautiful alto low and thrilling. “It’s called deduction, Joanna. I merely observe. Not my fault the rest of you are idiots.”

“Arrogant, much?”

“Very. Most people tell me to ‘sod off, bitch’ when I tell them their lovers are cheating on them.”

“Well,” Joanna shrugs, thinking of her mother and the Corps, “Most people are idiots.”

“Yes,” Sheridan whispers, looking at her in that calculating way again, “…they are.”

-

Mary’s partner Janine started the Corps soon after her death, supported by the government to train young women to become Reds. They spewed out statistics on the news of how beautiful women in scarlet clothing are more likely to attract Wolves. How to use themselves as bait to trap Wolves and kill those monsters with quick reflexes and expert shots. Each Red would be accompanied by a handler for battle support and first aid. Their training would be cared for and they’d receive a pension for fighting for their country.

Thousands of girls signed up, to the surprise of many.

They appeared on talk shows. They advertised the latest Red fashions and makeup line ups… all to convince girls to fight out in the Snowlands and get rid of the Wolves.

Joanna never mentioned to her mother how much she wanted to join. Instead, she focused on becoming a doctor like her mum wanted. Meanwhile, the word ‘Red’ became something like a slur, the lowest of the low in their house.

Helen would demand that Harry dress properly, wondering if Harry was going to run off and become a Red like the rest of those skanky women. She made tasteless jokes about certain types of people being inclined to join the Corps.

“Lesbians, probably,” their mum would mutter at dinner and Harry’s grip on her fork would tighten as she deliberately ate with her mouth open. “Might as well put them to use somewhere.”

“Can you stop that, mum?” Joanna had said coolly. “They’re people dying out there. For us. To keep us safe. Shouldn’t we have more respect?”

Helen and Harry’s eyes had widened before Helen softened and nodded, “Yes, of course, Joanna. You’re always so thoughtful… so sweet…”

But Joanna didn’t care for what her mother thought at that moment. Instead, she looked at Harry’s grateful gaze and for a moment… she felt close to her sister again. Whole. They nudged each other with their toes.

-

“A consulting detective?”

“Only one in the world,” Sheridan informs her smugly. “Humans aren’t meant to be boxed into a city… as population levels go up so do crime levels and it’s amazing how much more inventive murderers become when they seek attention in a close-off environment.”

Joanna frowns as they walk out of Tesco’s (she needed to restock on her groceries again… not that she’s been eating very much lately with the memories.) She hadn’t thought of the dangers within the Walled cities, dangers that people could possess towards other people. She’d been thinking more of Wolves… making the Snowlands clear…

“Of course, there are Wolves living in the city as well,” Sheridan adds.

She nearly drops her groceries. Again.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Wolves. In the city,” Sheridan rolls her eyes. “Do keep up, Joanna.”

“But—how? How did they get in? Why aren’t they massacring everyone?!”

“They were Walled in when we were. But oh, they are clever creatures… evolving as we are… they’ve learned to blend in… to take a few people off the streets at a time… people we won’t remember… As long as they don’t make it an obvious Wolf attack, they have a never-ending supply of nourishment. Why bother to change that arrangement? Despite all of the Red propaganda the media gives us, those Wolves can _think_ , unlike humans. They’re content to watch you humans run around in predictable patterns, content with their boring meals. Idiots as well. The lot of them.”

Joanna doesn’t know if she should laugh or frown.

“You speak like you aren’t human, yourself.”

Sheridan merely smiles, those sharp teeth making Joanna’s heart beat again and she has an urge to reach for her hidden pistol.

“My dear Joanna, when did I ever say I was?”

-

The day their mother walked in on Harry and her new girlfriend kissing on the sofa, everything changed.

Joanna had driven Helen home from a doctor’s appointment and was nervous about her A-Levels. When they’d walked into the house, they’d seen Harry and Clara jumping apart in surprise. No one spoke. Only stared at each other as outrage grew on Helen’s face.

“You…” Helen shook. “You… are not my daughter anymore. Not if you act… act like _them._ Like those _Reds._ This has gone on for too long, Harriet Watson. I’m going to ask you to leave until you sort your life out and you can return as a proper adult—”

Harry began laughing helplessly. “I’m not acting like a _Red_. I don’t care about that! I just wanted to be myself but you… you never even… God, this is just the way I am! I love Clara and I’m not changing, I’m sorry, mum.”

Helen swallowed once but the disgust in her eyes didn’t waver. “Then pack your bags. And don’t come back.”

“ _Fine,_ ” and it was Clara who spat that out, when it seemed like Harry was going to cry. “She doesn’t need you anyways. Come on, Babe, let’s go.”

“Then _leave!_ ” Helen shouted before turning with a kind face towards Joanna, one that made Joanna feel sick. “At least I have you, my good girl. Come on, we’ll go make dinner…”

“I—no. Just… _no!_ ” she stepped away from her. “That’s Harry! Your daughter, my _sister_. You can’t just kick her out, where will she go?!”

“With her _lover_ probably—”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Joanna asked.

Helen glared at her, “Now listen here—”

“No, I’m not going to. Not anymore,” Joanna stepped towards the stairs.

“And where are you going?!” Helen demanded, “I’m not done talking to you, young lady!”

“I’m going.”

“What?!”

“If Harry is going, then I am going with her.”

Betrayal flickered across Helen’s face and just for that fleeting second, Joanna wanted to apologize. But not this time.

“…Are all my daughters going to leave me?”

And Joanna pitied her then.

“No. You’ve pushed them away.”

-

“…You’re joking.”

“No. I’m not,” Sheridan insists.

“But you… you look human… you can’t be…” Joanna looks at Sheridan’s eyes and notices, for the first time, the bits of amber in between the green-blues and the greys. Wolf eyes, though muted in colour compared to the human ones.

She sucks in a breath.

“…How is this possible?”

“Experiments, mostly,” Sheridan shrugs. “I was curious to see how the original LUPIN project team of scientists created the first Wolves and for while so I experimented on myself. And here I am. Slightly different eyes. Monochrome vision, canine-like teeth and an enhanced sense of smell.”

“But you… did it hurt you?” she asks, putting a hand on Sheridan’s.

Her companion stiffens.

“You’re not… afraid of me.”

Joanna pauses. “Should I be?”

“I’m a Wolf. Of sorts. You’re a Red. You should be shooting me. Or screaming. That’s what they all do.”

“Well… you don’t seem dangerous,” Joanna says before Sheridan scoffs and pulls Joanna towards her until they are nose to nose and Joanna realizes, then, just how tall the other woman is. And how strong her grip is.

“Oh Joanna… I. Am. _Very._ Dangerous,” Sheridan says slowly.

She opens her mouth and then she closes it before she says, “Well, so am I.”

With a flicker of surprise, Sheridan lets go of Joanna’s wrist.

“I could shoot you if you tried to attack me, PTSD or not. And I think that’s why you told me that you’re sort of a wolf. You’re a consulting detective but it doesn’t seem like a lot of people trust you. If you had a former Red shadowing you, as a control of sorts, I guess you’d get plenty more cases, wouldn’t you?”

“Well then, you can observe after all.”

“So?” Joanna smiles, “Am I right, Sherlock?”

“You might be,” Sheridan admits. “I could use a… companion that the Yard could trust to… ‘put me down’ if I ever went… rogue. I hear you could use a job. And a new flat. Baker Street has some nice places. We should meet there tomorrow at noon. Bring your stuff round.”

“That’s it then? We just met and we’re going to look for a flat together? What makes you think that I’ll come?” Joanna laughs.

“Because,” Sheridan leans down again, so her breath touches Joanna’s nose, “you are very bored here in London. And I… am anything but boring. Besides, aren’t you curious about me? About the Wolf-eyes? How it’s been kept so quiet and yet everyone knows?”

Joanna opens her mouth again to tell Sheridan off for being so cocky before she breathes out, “God yes. Let’s go to Baker Street right now.”

And Sheridan takes her hand.

( _Oh little Red, you have no idea what you walked into.)_

-

When they left home, Joanna convinced Harry to leave a number for Helen to contact them at, in case their mother wanted to connect with them again.

Helen never called.

At University, Joanna decided to become a Doctor first before becoming a Red, because she always did want to follow her father’s footsteps.

And she grew her hair out like she always wanted.

-

**Interlude: A conversation in the dark**

“Are you sure about this, Sherlock?”

Sheridan wants to roll her eyes. “Don’t be such a bore, Mycroft. You know I hate repetition.”

He moves his pawn towards the knight and waits for his opponent’s next move.

“The ex-Red is dangerous, sister dear. If you continue to play with your food like this, don’t be surprised when your food bites back. There’s a reason the Corps decided not to give her a standard-protocol-M mission for her. Red Watson thrives on danger but in London, without any stimulation… she’ll wither and take care of herself.”

The white queen in Sheridan’s palm begins to crumble in her grip.

“Don’t be so boring, Mycroft. The Wolf wants to _play_ and you know what happens when we give it _boring meals_.”

Her brother sighs as Sheridan puts his king in check.

“London’s streets bleed red. Yes, I know.”

_It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf. – Thomas Fuller_


End file.
